I fixed an old line of mine at Rosa gully, Karen's Climb, which was a scary sandbag at 15. I added another two and a half pitches and sport bolted it, Tried it with ness and had horrendous drag and added another bolt and a belay, and trundled a chopper flake, then did it easily with Warwick and Jeff. The pitches are 19, 18, 20 and it's called The Last Wave.

Nice positions and some nice climbing as well as a few strange moves and moments of choss. It's ok in summer as it loses sun by 11am.

I see that in the online guide this has already been given three stars despite a description that says '... moments of choss'. It seems a little premature to be dishing out three stars, particularly when routes like the excellent Cruise or Bruise (21) at the Gap receive only one star.

On 2/01/2014 simey wrote:>It seems a little>premature to be dishing out three stars, particularly when routes like>the excellent Cruise or Bruise (21) at the Gap receive only one star.

Cruise or Bruise loses 2 stars on account of the fact that the moment you set foot on the rock platform below it, some tourist idiot will call the Police Rescue Squad who will then pull up your escape rope, force you to solo up the terrifying fisherman's descent, then rough you up while threatening to confiscate all your gear and/or throw you in the big house.*

Thanks for doing this Mikl. I recall setting out to do Karen's Climb in 1996 (as a raw beginner ready to move up from top roping at Diamond Bay), and couldn't even figure out where the start was. In retrospect I'm very glad we couldn't find it - we would have been waaaaay over our heads.

We then spent another hour or two exploring the walk around ledge (Sydney version of a via ferrata?) and I ended up having nightmares about falling off it for the next few weeks.

Is there much more potential above the walk around ledge? I seem to recall it went a long way to the north of Rosa Gully.

Simey, It's about as 3 starry starry fright as the seacliffs can get at that grade, like a grade 18 (sandbag) version of Duelling Biceps.
Peter, I have a recuring dreams of riding a bicycle alonmg that ledge, there are only 3 routes past Karens/Last wave. If it were 15m high there would be some good bits, At 60m there is always a band of choss somewhere.

Yay! A repeat!. If you're solid at 20-ish, the walk-in is quite scenic, once you get off the narrow ledge you'll recognise the honeycomb ramp (picture in the topo also). It's marginally quicker to fix a rope and rap.

Simey, you must remember that they recently converted to a 5 star system in NSW with all climbs having at least one star. Similar to the new Tastard star system in Tassie where all new routes have at least two out of 3 stars (genesis at Hillwood).

On 3/01/2014 mikllaw wrote:> Yay! A repeat!. If you're solid at 20-ish, the walk-in is quite scenic, once you get > off the narrow ledge you'll recognise the honeycomb ramp (picture in the topo also). > It's marginally quicker to fix a rope and rap.

I brought a static, I think we'll fix and rap.

I've checked out Rosa Gully as far as the ladder up to the ledge, which I refused to climb. James sketched up it, the rope above it was anchored with expansion bolts with Petzl hangers, that he pulled out by hand.

>This old post has photos of the ladder and ledge>>tell me if you think the 'wires' above this are any good.>And look at Breakers, a "19" about 5m right/

On 3/01/2014 sbm wrote:>I brought a static, I think we'll fix and rap.

good idea, you can leave the draws near the lip of the roof on and suss and clean the holds, break, and handjamb on the left

>I've checked out Rosa Gully as far as the ladder up to the ledge, which>I refused to climb. James sketched up it, the rope above it was anchored>with expansion bolts with Petzl hangers, that he pulled out by hand.

I might tie that ladder down, and pull the bolts some time.
When you touch down on the ledge (45m down, about 10m above the surf). walk right about 30m and look at the huge walls heading north.>

Well we did it, two hours car to car starting at about 5pm. Turns out even plenty of U bolts can't quite sport-ify the sea cliffs, a little more adventure than I was planning on.

We parked on Chris Bang Crescent, the access was awful, we had to walk almost twenty metres across the whole park and there were even bindis in the grass. Fixed a static and rapped in without incident, there's a nice big square platform to aim for.

The first pitch was dispatched, hilarious mantle up on to the little ledge, then haul onto the wall above on jugs, then twenty meters of tip toeing on crispy eggshells, up to a ledge under the choss roof. I had a couple of cams and placed one at some point for good measure.

Brendan did well seconding. But just after unclipping the last draw, he pulled off a jug, and took a big swinging fall straight onto the belay. "I'll just swing back around!" he said, I cringed and tried to hold the rope clear as it pinged over all the little crispy eggshell edges.

The start of the second pitch looked bad, quite blank and hard, and all the slopey footholds were covered in rock dust from the recently drilled belay bolts. (Although, that could have just been the normal covering of sand).

Brendan stepped up, and actually managed to free off the belay, I was impressed. He made it to the first bolt, but then went up into the choss rather than staying low and traversing left. Another huge chunk of rock pulled off and he screamed and fell, taking a big factor 1 and ending up a bit below me and to the left. I got bashed into the rock a bit on the belay, and was starting to get scared.

But Brendan pulled back on and climbed the rest of the pitch, through the worst and rope-cuttiest choss on the route and past some delicate and dirty moves, to successfully mantle onto the next belay ledge.

Seconding was scary, traversing off the belay with sharp edges looming above. I got through it and we were at the last pitch.

Despite being the technical crux, the last pitch was great fun for me, the best rock, heaps of bolts and short, the hero pitch! I got up to the first big throw over the roof, went "Whoaaa super sandy!", backed off to the cave, then went up again and got it. Then there's another classic mantle to top out.

Brendan had quite a hard time seconding though, and after much dogging, ended up hauling up on the rap rope. However he was so battered, that even this was hard work!

Conclusion: sandy, gritty, and still scary with plenty of choss management required, but the bolts make it sane. Great position. I'd switch the grades of pitch 1 and pitch 2 (p1 18, p2 19) and consider double or twin ropes (or at least don't fall). And bring a broom. If you like the sea cliffs or at least the idea of them, you'll like it!